“What is Really Getting Covered?”

Summary
Media coverage of political issues is spotty. Of the three branches of government, only the judiciary branch has been covered sparsely. There are rarely judges at the federal level getting coverage by the media because they never hold news conferences and usually do not want media attention. Hearings in the court room that are dramatic have better audience appeal and they are usually broadcast live by Court TV. Audiences like dramatic events better than regular news because there is more attention drawn to these types of events and more excitement. Court hearings also show how pressure groups use the media in order to influence judicial politics. Institutional aspects of the federal courts receive little coverage as well. While federal judges themselves are not in the limelight that often, their judicial decisions are. Examples of this are Brown v. Board of Education (1954) and Roe v. Wade (1973). Both of these examples involved emotional issues and the news media tend to give more attention to civil rights and First Amendment cases. The media only end up covering a fraction of the court’s decisions. Covering the Supreme Court tends to be difficult for reporters. The justices force the reporters to take in a lot of contradictory opinions at a very fast pace. The Supreme Court has a press office, but it will refuse to interpret a justice’s decision in a way that makes it understandable for the general public and reporters. They do this out of fear of getting involved in legal controversies. A lot of the reporting on the courts is imprecise and wrong. Engel v. Vitale and Baker v. Carr are examples of faulty reporting. The stories about these two cases in 63 of metropolitan dailies had misleading headlines and many serious errors. Reports on court activities usually seem to be more superficial and flawed than presidential and congressional reports. The reason for this is because the subject matter is very technical and difficult for the reporters to understand. Stories about judicial decisions have the problem of not being exciting so they therefore have a problem making front page news. The public’s reaction to a Supreme Court decision can affect future decisions of the Court because the justices are influenced by what they hear from the media. News stories can also influence court personnel. The amount of publicity that a crime gets influences the prosecutor. General news about crime and the justice system is important because it creates an image of the quality of public justice. News stories that are sensational tend to lead to an exaggerated fear of crime because focus is usually on the most violent acts which really only makes up a small portion of all crime. News stories that focus on these kinds of acts can also mislead the public and jurors about who is guilty. There is always an overemphasis on crimes that involve celebrities. An example of this is the O.J. Simpson case. For a very long time, this story took up space in most newspapers, magazines, as well as news on TV. These stories increase audience size because people are attracted to stories that involve celebrities and stories that are blown up and widely publicized.

Reaction
While reading about the overemphasis on crimes and stories involving celebrities and the example of O.J. Simpson, it reminded me just how much publicity that story got. I was younger and I still remember that story taking up space in every single newspaper, every magazine, and a lot of space on TV. Everywhere you looked, O.J. Simpson’s face was there. I feel like had he not been a former football legend, this story would not have been dragged out for years. There are crimes like O.J.’s that happen all the time but those stories don’t get nearly the amount of coverage that his story got. It just proves the point that anything involving a celebrity of some sort is made out to be a bigger deal than an average person.